RESOURCES
Human Origins Database
In collaboration with Bernard Wood of The George Washington University and
Malcolm Harman of the Powell-Cotton Museum, we have been developing an on-line database which houses published metrics for fossil hominin
material, as well as detailed skeletal element inventories of great ape specimens housed at the Powell-Cotton Museum in Kent, England.
Data sheets are provided for each ape specimen which give information on in vivo and post-mortem damage to each bone as well information
about articulation, presence of additional connective tissue, degree of epiphyseal fusion, etc. Also available are summaries of age-indicators
(cranial suture fusion, long bone epiphyseal fusion, and dental eruption) for the entire ape collection, presented for each species and sorted by
approximate place in the ontogenetic sequence. Access is free and available at
http://www.humanoriginsdatabase.org.
Primate Postcrania Collections Summaries
Although
it is fairly easy to identify where primate cranial collections are located, it
can be quite difficult to track down good collections of postcrania. In the interest of
reducing the amount of duplicated work for those of us who study primate postcranial morphology,
I put together a spreadsheet of postcranial specimens in collaboration with Patricia Vinyard. Currently I have information on specimens
measured by myself and/or Patricia Vinyard at various US and European museums (see below). Summaries
broken out by collection and taxon are available for download below. This spreadsheet only includes a subsample of specimens
available at these museums and relatively few elements, and may not necessarily reflect all of the specimens available for that taxon. In
particular, only adults have been included.
Many thanks to Patricia Vinyard for sharing her
postcranial specimen information. If you would like to contribute collection information, please
let me know.